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No salary wastes everyone's time

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Re: No salary wastes everyone's time

#31

Post by hakunin »

lapcat wrote: post #29
hakunin wrote: post #27

This is probably going to be controversial. I find salary to be really weird for many reasons. One of them is that I just can't imagine a sustainable world where salary is proactively offered, raised, etc. I think it necessarily must be negotiated. I say this as a person who spent most of my 20y career negotiating for my salary and hating the process. It feels attractive on the surface to see a concrete number, kind…

> However, the issue is that you're probably overpaying for the car On the contrary. People have options for cars. You don't have to buy a specific brand or a specific model. If every car's price is listed publicly, then consumers can easily shop around for the best price, and it would be difficult for a dealer to get away with overcharging everyone with a publicly listed price. People just won't buy from a dealer wi…

That's probably more true for simple products like toasters. For products where each one is almost always unique (has tons of optional choices, details) you can't easily shop around and compare apples to apples. You end up narrowing down to a few _mostly acceptable_ products in your vicinity, and then negotiating among those few.

To add: it's already difficult for a dealer to overcharge because even for complex/unique products we do have stats.

I just don't like the circular dependency of it. Companies follow an industry-wide stat to push all the people into preset salary tiers. The industry-wide stat is based on these same companies. The only way out is when some "rogue" companies allow some "rogue" employees to negotiate, and push the industry upwards.

Re: No salary wastes everyone's time

#32

Post by soupfordummies »

hakunin wrote: post #27

This is probably going to be controversial. I find salary to be really weird for many reasons. One of them is that I just can't imagine a sustainable world where salary is proactively offered, raised, etc. I think it necessarily must be negotiated. I say this as a person who spent most of my 20y career negotiating for my salary and hating the process. It feels attractive on the surface to see a concrete number, kind…

>>I can't imagine a situation where they go "sorry, we really think we need you, but our job listing only goes up to this number, oops".

But that happens often. Maybe not as much for very senior (10+ years) but I’ve been there myself.

I do highly agree with your points and analogies about negotiation however

Re: No salary wastes everyone's time

#33

Post by pizzafeelsright »

I really love negotiating. I also like knowing the budget a position has been assigned.

Obviously salary means you're getting paid less than the value you contribute so then it becomes a matter of squeezing more value out of the position or adding more value than advertised?

I've interviewed candidates. They come in every skill set. Some under value themselves while others. We've been given a max budget of $150k. What do you do when an amazing candidate who could replace a dozen current employees only wants $180k?

Re: No salary wastes everyone's time

#34

Post by paulddraper »

klipklop wrote: post #17
paulddraper wrote: post #8

I want to be upfront. Here's the difficulty. (I say this as an employer.) Let's say I'm looking for engineer #2 or #3 for my YC startup and I'll pay 95k for junior or 185k for senior. Is posting 95-185k really that useful? What happens when I offer someone 130k but they were expecting 185k? And you can't just use years of experience alone to rank junior vs senior. tl;dr If engineers were more fungible, I could post a…

If your singular job listing can somehow match both a junior and senior you are just fishing for a good deal, not actually looking for what you need. People looking for senior engineers are usually pretty direct about it. Like others said, > 1 job listings for what you actually need.

I am looking for software developers. Could be junior or senior (or any of the infinite varieties in between), tho productivity differs for them.

Not complicated

Re: No salary wastes everyone's time

#35

Post by paulddraper »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #14
paulddraper wrote: post #8

I want to be upfront. Here's the difficulty. (I say this as an employer.) Let's say I'm looking for engineer #2 or #3 for my YC startup and I'll pay 95k for junior or 185k for senior. Is posting 95-185k really that useful? What happens when I offer someone 130k but they were expecting 185k? And you can't just use years of experience alone to rank junior vs senior. tl;dr If engineers were more fungible, I could post a…

You say: "I'm looking for engineer #2 or #3 for my YC startup and I'll pay 95k for junior or 185k for senior."

The next question is "what does junior mean" and "what does senior mean".

There's always another question

Re: No salary wastes everyone's time

#36

Post by iExploder »

never going to happen for a very simple reason. what every for profit company is trying to do is to extract as much value and labor from employee as possible.

dont get it twisted, this is a war and salary is strategic information. noone in their right mind is going to share this information unless they are forced to or believe there is tangible benefit (for them) behind it.

your boss is not your boss because they are nice and kind person, your boss is your boss because they figured out how to extract value from other people for their benefit.

Re: No salary wastes everyone's time

#37

Post by iExploder »

hakunin wrote: post #27

This is probably going to be controversial. I find salary to be really weird for many reasons. One of them is that I just can't imagine a sustainable world where salary is proactively offered, raised, etc. I think it necessarily must be negotiated. I say this as a person who spent most of my 20y career negotiating for my salary and hating the process. It feels attractive on the surface to see a concrete number, kind…

> I think it necessarily must be negotiated

it cant be negotiated fairly. negotiating works for people who are "in the know" and have been in the industry for years such as yourself. everyone else gets shit end of the stick, because the company is negotiation from position of power with much more knowledge.

thats why some governments mandate minimum salary based on collective agreement or make it a law to provide salary range (for example Austria)

Re: No salary wastes everyone's time

#38

Post by badpun »

hakunin wrote: post #27

This is probably going to be controversial. I find salary to be really weird for many reasons. One of them is that I just can't imagine a sustainable world where salary is proactively offered, raised, etc. I think it necessarily must be negotiated. I say this as a person who spent most of my 20y career negotiating for my salary and hating the process. It feels attractive on the surface to see a concrete number, kind…

The salary in the ad is always a jumping off point for negotiations. They can go always lower than that if they feel like you don't meet the criteria given in ad, or higher if you're particularly attractive. But, at least, it gives the ballpark.

Personal anecdote - for the past couple of years, I've complelety stopped applying to offers which don't advertise salary. My salary expectations are at the top end of the market and, I've found, if the companies are willing to pay as much, they usually put it in the job ad, as it draws more candidates. And conversely, if the company doesn't advertise their salary, it's usually because it's "market level" or below, i.e. nothing to brag about. There are of course exceptions such as FAANGs, where they don't have to advertise their high salaries because they're practically public information anyway.

Re: No salary wastes everyone's time

#39

Post by danwee »

The junior version of myself would agree: when you are a junior you have little power of negotiation and you accept whatever the company offers to you at the end of the interview cycle (besides, if you manage to get to the end of the cycle, then you're probably thinking "I cannot let this opportunity pass"). So, if salaries are public, then you know what you are going for.

The senior version of myself wouldn't mind having no salaries advertised in job offerings. I know that now I have more power of negotiation and I know how much I should ask for in an interview. In order to not lose time in interviews, sometimes I tell upfront "BTW, I'm expecting at least X per year. Is that alright? Otherwise, goodbye and thank you for your time". Sometimes I don't say that and wait until the end because my guts (and the internet) tells me that the company can pay really well, so I want to make a good impression in the interview and ask for a 10% more of whatever salary they offer me first.

Re: No salary wastes everyone's time

#40

Post by danwee »

paulddraper wrote: post #35
xboxnolifes wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say: "I'm looking for engineer #2 or #3 for my YC startup and I'll pay 95k for junior or 185k for senior."

The next question is "what does junior mean" and "what does senior mean". There's always another question

If you're looking for a "junior" and you don't know what a "junior" means, then that's your problem, no? I mean, if you are willing to pay X for position Y, you (your company) should know exactly what you are looking for.

Otherwise you are just fishing and see what happens. Not bad, though, but I don't think that's an excuse for "can't list salaries in job ads"

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